Common Good Constitutionalism and Schmittian Dictatorship:
From Legal Pacification to Social Homogenization
Speaker: Prof Dr Lars Vinx (University of Cambridge)
Date: Thursday, 24 September 2026
Time: 17:30-19:00
Venue: Library Art Gallery
Dr James Alexander (Department of Political Science) will be commenting on the paper.
ABOUT THE SERIES
The Jurisprudence Seminar Series at Bilkent University Faculty of Law brings together scholars from around the world to present and discuss original work in legal and political theory, ranging from foundational questions in general jurisprudence to contemporary legal, constitutional and political debates.
ABSTRACT
This paper offers a novel analysis of Carl Schmitt’s theory of dictatorship, as developed in Schmitt’s 1921 monograph Die Diktatur. It describes the generic characteristics Schmitt attributes to the institution of dictatorship, and it explains the difference between commissarial and sovereign dictatorship as well as the distinction between dictatorship and sovereignty. The analysis shows that Schmitt’s conception of dictatorship is trapped in an ambiguity: Schmitt understands dictatorship both as creating the conditions for the realization of the rule of law, conceived as a context-transcendent ideal, and as laying the political ground for a constitution that expresses the values associated with a particular political community. The tension between these two conceptions of the purpose of dictatorship is resolved, in later work, in favour of the expressive conception, but this move makes it impossible to uphold the claim that dictatorship can be justified by appeal to its role in the realization of an ideal of legality. The results of this novel account of Schmitt’s conception of dictatorship is employed to identify crucial tensions in Adrian Vermeule’s ‘Common Good Constitutionalism’.
BIO
Lars Vinx is a Professor of Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge. His areas of research expertise are legal and political philosophy and the history of political thought, with a focus on early modern political philosophy and on the constitutional thought of the Weimar Republic. Before coming to Cambridge, Lars taught in the Department of Philosophy at Bilkent University (from 2007 to 2018). He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. Lars is the author of Hans Kelsen’s Pure Theory of Law: Legality and Legitimacy (OUP 2007). He edited and translated into English several writings of Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt and published numerous articles and book chapters.
The seminar will be held in English.
All interested participants are welcome.
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Students who attend the event will be awarded 10 GE 250 / 251 points.